Not the same but some of this is reminding me of Daniel Powter.

Wasn't he on for a 2nd top 40 (Free Loop), but as a version of Bad Day was on the single, it made the former ineligible to chart?

6 hours ago, gooddelta said:

What was the issue with Obsessed by Mariah Carey? Didn’t it keep getting delayed over and over again while the hype was at its highest point? And by the time it came out it missed the top 40, yet is one of her biggest songs in the streaming era!

Obsessed was cancelled as a single in the UK. Goodness knows why! It seemed to me at the time that it was shaping up to do quite well, so who knows why the label got cold feet.

Here’s a post I wrote about how Obsessed was handled in the UK: https://www.buzzjack.com/forums/topic/512-mariah-carey-●-sales-analysis/page/9/#findComment-7409480 - there was an issue with a remix version being released illegitimately which would subsequently get removed from sale. Nevertheless they registered as sales with the OCC and Obsessed managed to peak at #52 because of this!

The original version of Obsessed couldn’t be legally downloaded in the UK until the album finally came out in late November 2009. The album was a delayed release - Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel came out in most countries towards the end of September or early October 2009! I Want to Know What Love Is essentially acted as a replacement lead single here, with a performance on The X Factor. It resulted in a #19 single and #23 album. I really don’t think the label made the right decision to cancel Obsessed and put all of their faith in a cover version! They must have anticipated great things, to release the album in Q4.

At least there’s been some justice for Obsessed, now Gold certified in the UK and within her Top 20 best sellers!

On 28/04/2025 at 15:36, tomwilkinson said:

Space Cowboy is Nick Dresti but the record was released on Southern Fried Records, Norman Cooke / Fatboy Slim's record label :)

And then to add insult to injury in 2007, his other song My Egyptian Lover with Nadia Oh just missed the top 40 :(

Edited April 30Apr 30 by TheSnake

Dido - Hunter was issued on a 3" cd with Christmas Day.

Avicii - The Days could have been massive but wasn't released as a UK single in the end.

Agreed on Atomic Kitten. Never understood why they pulled You Are about 2 days before its planned release date. Could have been another top 5 hit easy.

Oh yeah forgot about that Avicii track, yeah would have been enormous probably especially with Robbie on vocals (who wasn't yet a complete chart dud in 2015). Would have been really cool to see The Days and The Nights both charting at the same time.

On 28/04/2025 at 11:00, Julian_ said:

Space Cowboy (another alias for Norman Cooke / Fatboy Slim) released a cover of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” in 2002. It had loads of radio play and was on course for the Top 10 but disqualified due to having 3 remixes on top of a B side.

That was not Norman Cook, it was Nicolas Dresti, formerly known as DJ Supreme, and better known for his collaborations with Lady Gaga. (He appears in the Just Dance and Poker Face videos.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cowboy_(musician)

It's ironic that where this was once a reasonably commonplace occurrence in the 2000s/'10s, nowadays it's far more likely that we'd see things the other way around - i.e. songs not officially issued as 'singles' still get into the charts. By this I mean those that are either heavily promoted through inclusion on a TV or film soundtrack, but which were never formally issued as a single per se (and never will be), or those which are already available on a parent album release, and while might be promoted as a single via radio, TV and online channels, actually can't be streamed or bought from a stand-alone single package as such (i.e. they can only be streamed or bought as a track from the album bundle). These scenarios occur increasingly commonly, what with Netflix shows suddenly catapulting older (sometimes non-single) songs into contemporary popularity, and the release of an album after issue of maybe two or three prequel singles, which I suppose renders it technically unnecessary to put any tracks from it that are later promoted as 'singles' out in a stand-alone single thereafter. An alternative strategy may be to issue a remixed/rerecorded edition of the original album version as a stand-alone single, while the original only remains available from the album.

The one that always stands out in my memory as becoming ineligible for the charts was a song called 'Industry' by a band called The Modern, a sort of latter-day imitation of The Human League in style and sound. Issued on CD in March 2006, it was set for a Top 15 entry on release, but was rendered excludable at the last minute, I think owing to the OCC having detected what appeared to be some irregular and suspicious sales through certain stores, enough to justify not awarding it an official chart position. Quite a lot of singles were barred from charting due to known or strongly-suspected hyping attempts, as far back as the 1970s.

On 02/05/2025 at 01:20, TimConArtist said:

Dido - Hunter was issued on a 3" cd with Christmas Day.

Avicii - The Days could have been massive but wasn't released as a UK single in the end.

Agreed on Atomic Kitten. Never understood why they pulled You Are about 2 days before its planned release date. Could have been another top 5 hit easy.

Hunter charted. Do you mean All You Want? I remember it getting airplay late 2001/early 2002 but I always wondered why it never charted.

20 hours ago, T Boy said:

Hunter charted. Do you mean All You Want? I remember it getting airplay late 2001/early 2002 but I always wondered why it never charted.

The format it was released on (an exclusive 3-inch mini-disc) was not an eligible chart format.

On 30/04/2025 at 08:45, Herbs said:

Not the same but some of this is reminding me of Daniel Powter.

Wasn't he on for a 2nd top 40 (Free Loop), but as a version of Bad Day was on the single, it made the former ineligible to chart?

This was the first one I thought of. Again, not a massive hit, but it would have made the Top 20 I think...

Oh I always wondered why Dido-All you want never charted

The Long and Winding Road!

On 30/04/2025 at 00:47, musicfan97 said:

I’m guessing X Factor contestant performances weren’t chart eligible because it might’ve been seen as favouriting certain contestants who did well on downloads etc.

I think it was always that if a performance was chart eligible that it would become more known who the public were liking the most.

But a quick look at the iTunes chart, which was much more prominent and influential at the time showed that anyway.

Fleur will always have that note on her career path that Upton Funk went to #1 on iTunes even before the original was released. Just a shame that Sax wasn't a true-life #1 as well and that her pop career nosedived after that.

Don't give up hope, we're still waiting for More & More's impact week!

On 28/04/2025 at 17:31, JosephBoone said:

Yes this is right! At the time, albums could only have one "instant grat" charting, given iTunes/the OCC didn't quite know how to handle them, nor separate their individual sales from an automatic download as part of the album pre-order. Break Free was ineligible until My Everything came out, because Problem was already an instant grat from the album pre-order! We see this chaos with Eminem, who had very erratic chart runs for Berzerk, Rap God and Survival due to these rules.

Is this similar to the Madonna, Gimme All Your Luvin' thing, where she entered in the low 30's because two days worth of download sales were discounted because there was an offer that allowed the song to be downloaded for free if pre-ordering her MDNA album?

But as the lead, it was the only song available from the album, so that wouldn't add up?

1 minute ago, ChrisJK said:

Is this similar to the Madonna, Gimme All Your Luvin' thing, where she entered in the low 30's because two days worth of download sales were discounted because there was an offer that allowed the song to be downloaded for free if pre-ordering her MDNA album?

But as the lead, it was the only song available from the album, so that wouldn't add up?

I think at that point, the instant grat songs couldn't chart at all until the album was out!

Wasn't Taylor swifts Welcome to new york the first to benefit from that rule change or was it the last

Currently listening to an edition of Pop Anthems on the Radio 1 Anthems stream and they've just played Busted - She Wants To Be Me (it was ineligible to chart as it was released on a 3" CD single). I didn't expect it to be featured on the show but clearly Radio 1 remember it well and must've supported it at the time. I don't think I've heard it since I owned the album in 2004, it was a nice surprise.

On 27/04/2025 at 21:32, AllStarBySmashMouth said:

Fergie 'Fergalicious' I think?

It was actually a Double A-Side with Clumsy in May 2007 which was a really poor decision as it certainly deserved its time to shine on its own and would've been a great second single following London Bridge.

Edited May 19May 19 by lewistgreen

4 hours ago, lewistgreen said:

It was actually a Double A-Side with Clumsy in May 2007 which was a really poor decision as it certainly deserved its time to shine on its own and would've been a great second single following London Bridge.

The physical release of it in 2006 got cancelled at the last minute which meant it couldn't chart, I'm pretty sure they screwed themselves out of a top 3 hit by doing that. Then they just decided to tack it on to 'Clumsy's release much later, not that there was any point.